Page 300 of When a Soul Cries

Kai sighed into the phone. “Zari. Please. I been listening to this woman ask me questions I don’t have answers to for the last thirty minutes.”

“Because nobody knows nothing!” Sugga yelled in the background. “My oldest son done went on a weekend trip and woke up deciding he somebody husband!”

“Ma, they not married yet,” Kai called back.

“That ain’t the point!” Sugga snapped.

Kai groaned into the phone. “See?”

I started laughing. “Give me ten minutes.”

“You got five,” Kai warned.

“You got me fucked up.”

“And yet I’m still outside.”

I hung up.

Twenty minutes later, I climbed into Kai’s SUV.

The second I shut the door, Sugga twisted around from the front passenger seat.

“Twenty minutes,” she said, staring at me.

“I had to get dressed!”

“For twenty minutes?” Sugga asked.

“Ma,” Kai warned from behind the wheel.

Sugga faced forward again. “I’m asking a question.”

Halo sat strapped into her car seat beside me, kicking her little feet and babbling like she was the only person in the vehicle not bothered by the chaos.

“Hey, pretty girl,” I cooed.

Halo grinned when I leaned over and kissed her cheek.

Kai pulled away from the curb.

We hadn’t even made it to the end of the street before something came flying toward me.

I caught it against my chest.

“What the hell?”

“Open it,” Kai said.

I looked down.

A jewelry box.

My eyes narrowed. “Khalil.”

“Just open it,” he repeated.

Sugga slowly turned her head toward him.